Every once in a while we dive into the media scene on this space. Why not? In some quarters there is a theory that the press is just as much a part of the show as the ballplayers. Different tent, but the same circus.
Nevertheless, the Philly media is reeling a bit after the announcement that Gannett, the owner of both the Wilmington News Journal and Camden Courier Post, unceremoniously (as if there is another way) laid off a significant number of folks from their staffs yesterday. Certainly such developments are the norm in the biz these days and not just in the media either, where we sometimes have the innate ability to be a tad self-absorbed. Times are tough everywhere these days and there are a lot of good, hard-working people looking over their shoulders waiting for the axe to fall.
To be sure, there are a lot of sleepless nights all over.
Yet despite 2007 profit margins of 25.08 percent at Wilmington and a more modest but by no means poor 9.83 percent at Camden, the layoffs came with impugnity. Stranger yet, someone at Gannett decided that the Courier Post no longer will cover the Philadelphia professional teams.
Yeah.
Get this: a profitable business in an industry that now hs more readers than at any point in its history is laying off the very people that made it such a viable and profitable business in the first place.
As an old ink-stained wretch and veteran of decades in the newspaper business told me recently, "newspapers aren't dying, they're committing suicide."
They also appear to be doing a disservice to their readership. Barely a month after the Phillies galvanized the region and delivered the first championship to the fans in a quarter century, someone with a spread sheet and a bunch of numbers decided that Phillies scribe Mike Radano and columnist Kevin Roberts (and approximately 30 others) had to go. Yeah, that's right... mere weeks after Mike and Kevin were the biggest reason why people were looking at the Courier Post every day, they're gone.
But at least Kevin didn't go empty handed. In addition to a modest severance package and his walking papers, Kev received a gift card for being named employee of the month of November.
No, you can't make this stuff up.
Meanwhile, with the Eagles making one last push for the playoffs just four days before marching up to the Meadowlands to take on the Super Bowl champion New York Giants, the readers in South Jersey (and beyond) will be given nothing. That's because beat writer Sean McCann received the same fate as Mike and Kevin.
Hey, I know people have their own problems and I know there are a lot of good people who have been downsized, laid off, and abandoned by a poor economy and/or ineptitude by some greedy people. Times are hard. It's evident.
But it's a shame that profitable businesses can't figure that just because the world is a rat race, it doesn't mean one has to be a rat. For epochs, advancements in technology made life easier for people. Recently, it made things like newspapers and television better. Innovation is what makes the world go 'round.
Yet for some reason it seems as if certain advancements in technology have not only limited the level of discourse in the United States, but stiffled it greatly simply because some old-time execs didn't get it or couldn't quite figure out how to make a buck off the most important technological advancement of their lifetime. Yes, this is simplifying it a bit, but this is a rant...
So the show lost a few characters yesterday and it likely will lose a few more in the months coming up. For people who enjoy sports and have that passion heightened because they could revel in the glory or agonize in the defeat along with a writer or storyteller, the games sadly became a little less fun.